I apologize if this has been done before. But, the recent thread on “drugs you’ve taken”, and the ever present but mutating threads on the “best book you’ve read”, caused me to reflect.
For me, it was Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. No doubt you’ll ask - how could a 1950’s sci-fi wield such power? have such influence on me? You see, at the time, I was a dope-smoking, acid-dropping, disaffected long hair who went to school only if the local pool hall was closed (or was crawling with the resident biker types who terrified me). So, when in Foundation, Asimov described mathematics and science as a way to predict and control, it was an epiphany. I became aware that there was a magnificent, unifying structure to the Universe. And I was part of it.
Before I finished the third volume, I was back at school. I couldn’t get enough math, physics, etc.*
I have wondered what would have happened to me if I hadn’t read Foundation.
[sub]*As an aside, the ultimate irony would turn out to be that my interest in things mathematical was inversely proportional to my abilities in the area. But, by the time I had recognized this fact, I had already learned enough general scientific stuff to get into medical school.[/sub]
This may be because I just read this book, but I think it has redefined me as a person and how I think.
** Night ** Elie Weisel
A man’s true story of his time in three different concentration camps. Grueling.Gripping. Horrifying. I sniffled through most of the book at the inhumanity of it all, but most of all when after running barefoot in the snow and barely clothed through the night ( being transferred to another concentration camp) and the horrors encountered during that death march/run, the releif that all the prisoners felt when they finally eyed their destination: Buchenwald.
Carl Sagan’sDemon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
It changed my whole outlook on life. It introduced me to the fundamentals of scientific thought and proper skeptical techniques. It was largly responsible for the fact that I went into a scientific field. I was going to go into math or physics, but much like you Karl, it turned out I suck at all things mathmatical. Instead I went into biology (all the fun of regular science, but with 1/4 the math!).
I would have to say The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I don’t neccessarily subscribe to her philosophical ideals, but the book shocked me so much, I feel that if I never read that book, I wouldn’t be the same person today.
A close second on my list would have to be The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. In some ways, it shocked me more than Rand’s novel did.
To further the life-changing bit a little more, I read these two books one after another, which only bent the path of my life even more.
“Stranger In a Strange Land”
by the immortal, although, sadly dead, RAH
First it made me an athiest,then mellowed me to agnostic,
finally reenforces to me that I do believe.
now I grok
Undoubtedly “Amelia Bedelia.” It’s the first book I checked out of the library with my brand spanking new library card -complete with my block letter signature.
As a kid, I loved going to the library - the books, the card file index in those little drawers, the smell, the little machine that lit up when you checked out a book - I still have no idea what that that machine did - the copier machine that cost a nickel.
I still love going to the library!
Lisa, off to read her newest library book “Comanche Moon” by Larry McMurtry. It doesn’t come close to “Amelia Bedelia”, but it’s okay.
A book that can easily teach a young man that other people are NOT just objects to be manipulated or avoided but real people with points of view and feelings that it is necessary to understand and appreciate.
or
Have Space Suit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein
The lead character, Kip Russell, has goals that he works towards with brains and determination. His parents encourage him without doing the work for him and later, when he has to solo (under very trying circumstances)(you try defending your species in the Lesser Megellanic Cloud!) the strength and knowledge he’s acquired stand him in good stead. Could there be a better lesson for a 10 year old?
That would be the Phone Book. This book has truly opened up a new world for me. It’s all about dialing convenience.
I just got this book of matches that has literally set my curiosity on fire.
All of The Straight Dope books are read by me to my romantic prospects over candle-lit dinners. . .and during the ensuing beakfasts as well.
Sagan’s Demon Haunted World is a great book, I’d have to agree on that. As is Unweaving The Rainbow by Richard Dawkins. This book is another scientist’s view of the physical world, in which he counters the perception that science is a cold pusuit that attempts to unlock the magical lyric beauty of nature, only seeking to study it dispassionately through a microscope. It is Fascinating reading that is well-conceived and well-written; the essays are emotionally moving as well as scientifically informative.
Another notables:
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Grapes of Wrath
Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Ulysses
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Drink: A Social History of America
The Tin Drum
Wisdom of the Bones
It might just be The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Not because it’s better than anything else I’ve ever read, nor even that it’s Pynchon’s best book (it isn’t, though it’s more consistenly fun than the others). As anyone who’s read it will acknowledge, it’s no guide for how to live your life and doesn’t present either a distopia or utopia intended to point out the flaws in our world or how it could be made better.
The reason I cite it as the most influential book I’ve read is that after enjoying it immensely when I read it in a grad school class, I ended up doing a paper on it in which I explored the theme of information theory in the novel. In doing the research for this, I became fascinated with information theory in general, with the works of John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon. That lead me to Jeremy Campbell’s Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life, which introduced me to the connections between information theory and evolutionary theory. That was the detonation of fuse lit by Crying. Since then, I’ve read dozens of books on science-related topics (particularly evolutionary science) that I probably would not have read had I not read Crying and Grammatical Man. Beyond that, what I’ve learned from that reading has profoundly affected how I view the world and how I live my life.
1984 by George Orwell because it made me look at our world differently.
Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Throughout high school I wanted to be an actress. Junior year I took an acting class and realized that acting really wasn’t for me because I wasn’t disciplined enough. What else could I be that would let me reach out to an audience? Why, an author! I loved to write and always churned out short story after short story. I would tell people I was going to be an author and they’d say the same thing when I told them I wanted to be an actress, “Well, that business (whether it be Hollywood or writing) is a hard business to get into and you could fail. You should concentrate on a fall-back job.” Not exactly encouraging words and I reazlied they could be right. Then the whole Harry Potter craze came to America full force last July with the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I listened on the life of JK Rowling: How she was dirt poor, having to take her baby daughter into a coffee shop to get warm and while she was at that coffee shop she wrote Harry Potter. I was inspired by that. “She didn’t think she would make it, but look how successful she is!” I told people. And now I’m concentrating more on my writing than ever before.
Of course I’ll have a fall-back job. I’m not that foolish.
That book is the reason I got interested in Goddess religion. I’m still not entirely sure how far or where I’ll go with it, but it was the inspiration for loads of personal study as well as my master’s project. I’m one of those people who needs something spiritual in my life, and Avalon gave me a better idea of how to find it.
I think I was fairly altered by any number of the following. They are all really good books, and I recommend them heartily:
Girlfriend in a coma - Douglas Coupland
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Scepticism Inc. - Bo Fowler
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirzig
Maybe not the best book I ever read, but the best present I ever got was a Jules Verne anthology that my brother gave me when I was about 12. It gave me the interest in science and science fiction that made me the geek I am today!
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. The book referred me to other books, which lead to other books, which lead to reading in areas I had never before found. In the space of a year or so, my education and thought processes expanded in a remarkable way!
